“Oh, okay?” Buck had said. “My name is John Buckley, and I’m also an agent. So if you need representation…?”
“I have representation,” Belinda had said, and she slipped through the double doors to the kitchen.
She found Deacon at a gleaming stove in his chef’s jacket, sleeves pulled down properly, a navy bandanna tied around his forehead. She had tapped him on the shoulder, and when he whipped around and saw her, he seemed nonplussed, almost as if he didn’t recognize her.
“Hey,” he said finally.
“It’s me,” she said. “The non–prima donna, Belinda Rowe.”
He blinked. “Are you eating in the restaurant?” he said. “I can send something out.”
“No,” she said. “I just stopped by to say hello. And to give you this.”
He turned halfway around. Belinda handed him a slip of paper with her room number at the St. Regis written on it. He took a second to read it, then he stared at her hard for a second.
“I’m married,” he said.
Belinda nodded once, her body growing stiff with mortification. She was an Academy Award–nominated actress. Leif was always telling her to keep her nose clean. Her career was on a crescendo; if she ended up on the front page of the tabloids for dating a married man, the leading-role offers would evaporate. And yet here she was, propositioning bad-boy chef Deacon Thorpe. She was devaluing her brand with every second she stood in this kitchen. And it wasn’t even that good a restaurant! Ruth Reichl had given it only two and a half stars in the Times, and she herself said that the half star was a donation because Chef Deacon Thorpe shows so much promise.
Deacon handed Belinda back the slip of paper and returned to his duties at the stove. Belinda had no choice but to slink out of the kitchen.
Later that night, she had crawled into her large, soft bed at the St. Regis, and she had castigated herself. She was a moron! She had acted like a teenage girl with a crush! She had behaved like a wanton floozy! What if Deacon Thorpe called up Liz Smith and said, Belinda Rowe walked into my kitchen to proposition me?
He wouldn’t do that, she was certain. He was too cool for that. He was way cooler than anyone else Belinda knew. Or so she had somehow convinced herself. But what, really, did she know about him?
I’m married.
There had been something in his eyes, she thought, that made her think he had wanted her. She recalled the tender way he’d wiped the corner of her mouth; it had felt like a kiss. But maybe she had misinterpreted that gesture. Maybe he didn’t want her and that was the attraction. Belinda had dated three men since moving to Hollywood—an actor (Stew Knightley, needy and narcissistic), a producer (David Gordman, rich and controlling), and, predictably, her director from Between the Pipes, James Brinegar (Jaime had been the most pompous, self-important ass she had ever met, and he was of course the one she had fallen in love with and was trying to get over). Deacon Thorpe was nothing like Stew, David, or Jaime. Deacon Thorpe might actually have known how to make proper love to a woman.
Belinda wondered about the wife. Leif thought she was hot, but she reminded Belinda of a low-rent Cheryl Tiegs, minus the boobs. Maybe Belinda had missed something.
Finally deciding that she had made a grave error in judgment but, she hoped, not one that would come back to haunt her, she closed her eyes.
And then her eyes popped open. Someone was knocking on her hotel-room door.
Belinda drank some more wine. “I know you hate me, Laurel,” she said. “I know you think I stole him from you.”
“You did steal him from me,” Laurel said. “But ‘hate’ is a strong word. I hate men who beat their wives and children. I hate drug dealers and pimps and people who walk into a movie theater and shoot innocent citizens. You could even say I hate lima beans. But I don’t hate you, Belinda. I don’t care enough about you to hate you. You fall beneath my consideration.”
Wow, Belinda thought. That was nicely done. Swiftly, cleanly, Laurel had sliced Belinda’s self-esteem off at the head. You fall beneath my consideration.
“Besides,” Laurel said. “I got back at you.”
“You did?” Belinda said.
Laurel gave her a long, level look. Laurel’s eyes were a clear gray-blue, like river stones. “Would you like to walk to the beach?” she asked.
“To the beach?” Belinda said. She wondered if this was part of some grand murder plot on Laurel’s part. Possibly she planned on drowning Belinda in the ocean as payback for her treachery. Revenge was a dish best served cold—and this would be really cold. Nearly thirty years had passed, and the husband Belinda had stolen was now dead. What did Laurel mean when she said she’d gotten back at Belinda? Was there a rattlesnake nesting in the bottom of Clara’s bed?
“Buck isn’t much of a beach person,” Laurel said, “and I’ve been wanting to go.”
“I’m sure I make Buck look like Aquaman,” Belinda said. “I grew up on the prairie.”
“Just come with me,” Laurel said. It seemed an order rather than a request.
Reluctantly, Belinda got to her feet, but first she poured herself more wine. There was no way she was walking to the beach with Laurel without wine.
Laurel eyed her wedge heels. “You’re wearing those?”
Laurel is turning out to be quite the control freak this weekend, Belinda thought. “I have sandals, but they’re buried in my suitcase,” Belinda said. “These’ll be fine.”
Again, the level gaze. Laurel’s face was lightly tanned and pretty much unlined. Did she have work done? Belinda wondered. She didn’t think there was a social worker alive who went in for plastic surgery, so probably not. Laurel was wearing a pair of turquoise rubber flip-flops, the kind you bought at the five-and-dime.
Belinda said, “I came here straight from L.A.”
“What about sneakers?”
“No sneakers.”
“Do you not work out?”
Belinda shrugged. “Yoga.”
“Do you wear your wedge heels to yoga?” Laurel asked.
Belinda didn’t want to tell Laurel that Belinda’s yoga instructor, Skyler, came to her suite at the Beverly Wilshire. In Los Angeles, Belinda was very conscious of her status, her lifestyle, and her perks. But Laurel was such a do-gooder—she was a social worker in the Bronx—that Belinda would have felt embarrassed admitting that she had a personal yoga instructor who paid house calls.
She said, “I have sneakers in Kentucky. Obviously.” Then she wondered if this was even true. Belinda wasn’t athletic. On the rare occasions that she went out to the horse track (unfortunately, a picture of Bob banging Carrie in the tack room presented itself), she wore Wellies.
“Maybe you should go barefoot,” Laurel suggested.
“No,” Belinda said. She would also be embarrassed to admit how much money she spent each week on spa pedicures, and she was not going to ruin her toe polish or invite rough patches on her heels by going barefoot. “I’ll just wear these.”
“Okay,” Laurel said with a shrug.
Belinda put on her sunglasses and her wide-brimmed straw hat. They tiptoed past the front room, where Buck was snoring on the couch, and they headed out the door.
Belinda did better than she thought she would going down the driveway; she didn’t spill a drop of wine. They crossed the road, and Laurel headed up the white sand path that led through tall beach grass. Belinda stopped and slugged back some of her wine for fortification. Laurel took off her cheapie flip-flops and kicked through the sand barefoot. From the back, Belinda thought resentfully, Laurel still looked like a girl. She wore her sandy blond hair long and straight, and her arms were nicely toned. She was wearing jean shorts and a white sleeveless blouse.
Belinda had to admit that she was jealous. Not of how Laurel looked, exactly, but of how little effort her beauty seemed to require. Did she go to the hairdresser to get the gray taken out of her part? Did she work out at a gym with a personal trainer to get those arms?
Belinda stopped again: more wine. The sand was white, deep, and very soft. Her left wedge wobbled and threatened to turn. She sighed. She would have to sacrifice the softness of her feet.